What if we held an election and everybody was mad, or scared, or both? We’re about to find out. Slammed by bad economic news for weeks, voters are reeling: Record-size bank failures and stock market plunges. Sinking home values and consumer confidence. Rising energy prices and unemployment rates. From personal 401(k)s to City Hall to the state Capitol to Wall Street, nothing, it seems, is immune.

Against this gloomy backdrop, Bay Area voters are anxious and peeved. But with the climax of a history-making presidential election so close, they also are engaged. As the campaign enters its final weeks, a majority of voters are telling pollsters they are more enthusiastic than usual about casting ballots.

“People are extremely depressed about the state of the economy and extremely discouraged about the actions of elected officials, but they are not feeling paralyzed,” said Mark Baldassare, president and chief executive of the Public Policy Institute of California.

Instead, voters are “enthusiastic about how much their vote counts. It seems to be all about desperately wanting change and feeling the only thing you can do is go out and vote for your candidate.”

From picking a new president to weighing in on the welfare of pregnant pigs, there’s a lot on California voters’ plates. They include groundbreaking social and fiscal measures asking if gay marriage should remain legal, and if it’s time to sell nearly $10 billion in bonds for a bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We’ll get back to the pregnant pigs.

In Santa Clara County, key questions are whether to raise sales taxes by one-eighth-cent to pay for BART-to-San Jose operations and whether San Jose wants to update its utility users tax to include text-messages.

We haven’t seen a presidential contest this riveting in four decades. Voter angst and the chance to make history in the White House with either ticket likely will bring out the highest percentage of registered voters in three decades, experts predict.

From Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s first Bay Area appearance as a candidate — a St. Patrick’s Day 2007 rally in Oakland that drew 15,000 — to GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s mega-fundraiser on the Peninsula two weeks ago, for 20 months voters here have been following the race, and occasionally getting a front-row seat.

“We’ve got a black man running for president and a white woman for vice president. We’ll make history either way. That’s exciting,” said Dan Nelson, a network specialist from Sunnyvale. But what Nelson really wants in Washington is change: “I don’t like the way things are going now.”

And Nelson felt that way even before the economic and political meltdowns of the past few weeks. They have created “a very dramatic shock to the electoral process,” said Jacob Hacker, political science professor at the University of California-Berkeley. There’s been nothing as climactic in the final months of a presidential race since the pall cast over the 1980 election by the American hostage situation in Iran, leading to Ronald Reagan’s victory over Jimmy Carter, he added.

The impact of financial chaos will be felt far and wide this election year and could hurt the chances of a variety of state ballot measures seeking to sell bonds or set mandatory spending levels.

In addition, after the budget battle consumed state politics all summer and produced few spending reforms, Californians are frustrated with state leaders.

And, in the absence of decision-making by leaders on such issues as legislative redistricting, voters face a dozen state ballot measures: Some are groundbreaking and weighty, others arcane and quirky. And some need special instructions to make sure yes means yes and no means no.

In a confusing twist, a yes vote on Proposition 8 is actually a vote to overturn gay marriages, which are legal since a May state Supreme Court ruling; a no vote would keep those marriages legal.

In terms of bond measures, history suggests they might have trouble. During the last downturn, from June 1992 to November 1994, three of 13 bond measures passed, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the statewide Field Poll. “Popular issues were voted down. Voters become much less willing to approve bonds in an economic downturn.”

The ballot includes a $10 billion bond to fund the 200 mph rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles. There are also large bond proposals to construct and renovate children’s hospitals around the state, fund home loans for military veterans and to give incentives to consumers to buy alternative-fuel vehicles.

The state ballot also includes new versions of several old ideas: drawing new legislative district boundaries, mandatory spending on public safety and the third attempt to require minors to get a parent’s permission before having an abortion.

But here’s a new one: Proposition 2 asks whether pregnant pigs, calves raised for veal and egg-laying hens should be confined in spaces large enough for them “to turn around freely, lie down, stand up and fully extend their limbs.”

The marquee ballot question facing Santa Clara County voters is whether to raise the county sales tax by one-eighth-cent to pay for operating expenses on the BART extension to San Jose. It is the third time in eight years that BART supporters have sought to increase or continue sales taxes to help fund transportation projects, primarily BART. It requires approval by two-thirds of voters, a difficult task in today’s environment.

With voters upset and demanding change, turnout is expected to be through the roof. Field’s DiCamillo predicts as many as 80 percent of the state’s registered voters will cast ballots, which would be a three-decade high.

“People are more motivated than they have been in a long time,” DiCamillo said. “They are going to vote. Yes, they are going to vote.”

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